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Grow Up - My Part
Brian Mashburn
December 8, 2013
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Mature And Fully Assured
As your minister, I have this desire that has lodged itself in my heart and soul. It drives my interactions with you, my prayers for you, and my preaching. It is the desire to see you spiritually mature and fully assured.
This desire is consuming. I do not always express it well (I go off course when I find myself "needing" you to show signs of it for me to feel I matter), but it is there, and it explains why I do what I do and say what I say.
Belief in the gospel message is the only thing I have found that gives people the assurance I desire them to have. This is why you will often hear me say, "You. Are. Forgiven." No amount of superficial expressions of Christianity gives the assurance that belief in that gives. That God loves us absolutely is what full assurance is.
And having a life that exhibits our love back to God and to others is what spiritual maturity is. This is what is meant by the phrase, "obeying the gospel."
Life rooted in the gospel is not static. It is visible, and gets bigger and deeper and broader...forever. In Hebrews, Paul told some believers that by now, they should be teachers, but are still dependent on someone else to keep repeating the elementary truths of the gospel. He said that they will mature only when they learn to constantly "train themselves." (Heb. 5:11-14)
Are you training yourself? We as a church can help, but your maturity comes only when you start designing your school of growth for yourself.
I stand today like "Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus...always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured." (Col 4:12-13)